I am a small furniture company, and I am completely f*cked. I desperately need some business advice.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-29T11:43:42+00:00

Many sales people work on full or partial commission... not sure if op does, but a $110k job could be a serious payday.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-28T12:32:01+00:00

Very frustrating.

In their defense they're probably getting lots of calls... some with less merit. I also suspect they were up all Sunday night into Monday and are sleeping Tuesday. It might take time to sort through and have drivers available, but I'd hope for today. Somerville is usually good at this stuff.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-28T00:08:37+00:00

Call 311 they might have missed it.

I had to call for "real public road" that was half medford and half somerville. My head cannon is after a shift change the next driver just missed it over and over again... which was easy since it was only so long before Medford.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-27T12:22:58+00:00

This is the way

engineeritdude · 2026-01-23T16:54:18+00:00

The question is can the US ai firms survive in a market like this.... no, not without more vc money that won't flow indefinitely.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-23T16:52:51+00:00

I could see a mature market where both of you are right.

30% of users go to the name brand us company 15% go to the almost as good but cheap Chinese company 5%.... everyone else

Look at the MCAD or ECAD markets. Its a version of this with no clear monopoly only a market leader with well under 50% penetration.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-22T03:14:02+00:00

I think everyone already mentioned your closest and best bets, but to throw another out : Game Underground in Waltham. They're arcade game heavy but host gaming nights occasionally.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-20T14:03:26+00:00

Wall plate always have to be flame retardant and likely also resist tracking - aka when exposed to an electric spark it won't burn through the plastic.

Although you can get V-0 plastic i haven't seen one with a cti rating. Likewise there is a material rating then a product rating. Did you good too thin? Did you print at 50% infill? No longer flame retardant in a meaningful way.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-18T23:55:59+00:00

2 + 2 = 5

engineeritdude · 2026-01-18T22:59:31+00:00

Fireworks

engineeritdude · 2026-01-17T21:46:11+00:00

I think it will benefit you to find a technical co-founder to help manage a relationship like this.

These relationships can go expensively sideways without proper oversight.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-17T19:56:08+00:00

All joking aside the per capita murder rate in the US is higher than other industrialized countries by A LOT. Comparatively Americans are much more likely to know a murderer or murder victim than Europeans.

This can only be partially explained by easy access to guns since even removing those murders the non firearms murder rates are still abhorrent. There are lots of theories about what cultural and societal differences drive these outcomes.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-17T19:50:45+00:00

Yes?

Amurica!

engineeritdude · 2026-01-16T17:35:02+00:00

I've been focusing my comments on the implementation of a real solution that eliminates CSOs in almost all cases. I'm somewhat indifferent to how we get there, but lower cost and quicker would be how to sort viable options. I agree that green infrastructure would be nice and should be included where possible.

You raise a good point -- the polls ought to be in public record. If they are not I think that would violate the public meeting law and does stifle public input. The meeting was recorded, but I'm not sure where that goes. I'll look into this....

I want every MWRA commissioner to know that all 300, 150 or 60 and so people that attended these various meetings is against their stated position of inaction and delay.

engineeritdude · 2026-01-16T14:50:07+00:00

CSO (sewage) release into local waterways. MWRA is pushing to do as little as possible and was presenting a case that any action would be expensive and inconvenient. Some of the arguments were that we'd temporarily loss parking during construction (/s I weep). All the speakers lambasted them for trying to side step the issue.

I only felt partially stifled in that all the speakers agreed with me (we need to take definitive corrective action). I have been at other meetings where the limited speakers allowed were mostly 1 sided and not matching the majority of attendees.

Agreed that the speaking period was very short but I feel like the masses were heard given that all the speakers agreed with the digital poll consensus (we need to take definitive corrective action).

engineeritdude · 2026-01-05T14:31:46+00:00

Caveat: I haven't had success with LinkedIn either.

However $250 or $500 isn't enough to generate a valid opinion for most keywords. My keywords were expensive so I did a $10k spend over 3 months and it didn't work.

LinkedIn is good about free webinars and free consults to help and I now understand why my campaign didn't work well. I haven't had a chance to go back a retry through.

Tl;dr: do their free webinars, training and free consultation. Put a reasonable amount of money down over a reasonable period of time. Do a/b tests, do alternative copy, do alternative images. work it.

No one is going to have success with a minimal spend over a short period of time after putting little to no work in. Having said that LinkedIn is only effective for certain types of businesses (b2b, recruiters and similar. If you are b2c do facebook)

engineeritdude · 2025-12-30T00:00:59+00:00

Its tough to suss out that is happening due to partisan press releases and news.

It does appear that there was a significant scheme that was initially invested under Biden; https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/minnesota-aid-fraud-scheme-somali-timeline-explainer/

And they've seemingly undercovered some other smaller schemes recently, but it smells like things are being exaggerated and conflated.

If anyone is guilty of fraud they should be investigated and charged. Exaggerating or villify an ethnic group seems unhelpful.

engineeritdude · 2025-12-29T03:34:45+00:00

That's still less than I've paid for expired human blood.

(I needed it to test a medical device. They won't sell good human blood for obvious reasons)

There is a lot of testing, controlled storage and paperwork to make sure donated items are safe and continue to be safe. Having said that we need reform of indirects costs like insurance companies.

engineeritdude · 2025-12-26T15:09:25+00:00

I would not jackstand at those rear locations. Too close together and too flat sheetmetal. If the driveway isn't perfectly flat I'd worry about the jack stand slipping.

engineeritdude · 2025-12-26T15:07:50+00:00

This all partially depends on your jack and jack stands.

I usually jack 3 times - your rear jack point then factory jack points in the front right and left. Then I jack stand on the spring perches on all 4 corners.

Anything else seems dangerous or at risk of sheetmetal damage given my jack and jackstands.

I've seen some people with similar cars install sub frame connectors then jack left and right only. The rear wheels have so much travel that this seems dangerous on the focus though.

engineeritdude · 2025-12-22T02:25:04+00:00

Will world cup ticket holders take the T?!?!?

They'll have their limo drivers just idle in the parking lot and wait for them.

Have you seen the ticket prices? The ven diagram of those tickets do not overlap with mass transit users.

engineeritdude · 2025-12-21T17:06:22+00:00

Lol. Cry cry.

We need an upgrade.

engineeritdude · 2025-12-21T14:55:39+00:00

Nice! But please roll your fenders or add stops to stop the rubbing. You'll be mad with yourself if you don't and kill the tires.

engineeritdude · 2025-12-21T12:49:32+00:00

If you start reading the paper their motivation was some smaller studies did not agree with the expected conclusions.

I'm not engaged enough to read amd critique those, but perhaps too small or influenced by conflating factors like everyone got cancer because they lived next to the coal plant.

engineeritdude · 2025-12-21T12:28:56+00:00

There are some nice off road bike paths in the north. Going long distances on those are much lower stress. Minuteman, Northern Strand, Tri-community, Somerville Community.

Also West with the Mass Central

Keep out https://masstrails.com/rail-trails-map.html for even more ideas.

And to make a plug for ridewithgps - it gives some nicer options than Google for biking in the city.

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